Challenge #1

"Introduce yourself and your watershed to the GWC community."

Hi! I would like to begin by acknowledging that the land on which we gather is the traditional territory of the Haudenosaunee, and most recently, the territory of the Mississaugas of the New Credit First Nation. The territory was the subject of the Dish With One Spoon Wampum Belt Covenant, an agreement between the Iroquois Confederacy and the Ojibwe and allied nations to peaceably share and care for the resources around the Great Lakes. This territory is also covered by the Upper Canada Treaties. Today, the meeting place of Toronto (from the Haudenosaunee word Tkaronto) is still the home to many Indigenous people from across Turtle Island and I am grateful to have the opportunity to work in the community, on this territory.

A little about me: I was born and raised in Dryden, Ontario, where my connection to water flourished. I moved to Toronto in 2012 for post-secondary education, where I discovered there was a strong disconnection to water in the urban city. I became fascinated with understanding (dis)connections to water, and how the (lack of) connections to water impacts the conditions of the global water crisis. The more I learn [about water], the more I realize I know nothing [about water]. Thus, I signed up for The Great Waters Challenge in hopes to learn more about water and the (dis)connections to water.

I currently belong to the Lake Ontario watershed, where I am privileged to have access to clean, safe drinking water (and sanitation). There are many water issues circulating the Great Lakes, however, the most pressing concern for me is water privatization. Water privatization defines water as a commodity, rather than a resource or commons. This is a fundamental issue to our watershed, provincial, national, and international communities! Access to safe, clean water is a human right, and yet, globally, 2.4 billion people do not have access to adequate sanitation facilities, and more than 663 million people still lack access to adequate sources of drinking water (WHO, 2016). Locally, as of August 31, 2016, there were 132 Drinking Water Advisories in effect in 89 First Nations communities across Canada, excluding British Columbia (Health Canada, 2016). Federal funding has been inadequate in addressing the communities’ urgent, immediate drinking water and wastewater treatment needs, despite that the First Nations communities are in desperate need of more adequate infrastructure to deal with ongoing, long-term problems (Health Canada, 2016). Meanwhile, private water companies are aggressively pursuing new “markets” in First Nations communities, and the federal government sees privatization as a quick fix for water crises in First Nations communities, and is therefore keen to facilitate public-private partnerships (Health Canada, 2016). Water privatization is NOT a fix for the water crises in First Nations communities! This will simply exacerbate the crises, resulting in further inequities in the distribution of water resources.

We, as a nation, need to take immediate action to stop corporations, such as Nestlé and Coca-Cola, from extracting public water resources. There are currently no plans to combat this urgent crisis in the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement, however, I believe that with concentrated efforts, increased awareness, and a strong social movement for change, water and sanitation for all is attainable.